Somewhere Over the Rainbow
by mtfrosty
Summary: One-shot from Anakin's POV, about a song he wishes he remembered...


_I thought this song went well with Anakin for some reason, so here's what came out of it. By the way, I put a link on my profile to the version of this song that I listened to. It's probably the most beautiful version I have ever heard._

_I got chills as I listened to it..._

_Enjoy! :)_

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><p><strong><em>Somewhere over the rainbow<em>**

**_way up high,_**

**_I heard it once in a lullaby…_**

When I was young, when I left my mother for the Temple, they used to tell me that death was not something I needed to worry about. That everyone dies, but everyone lives after death. They used to tell me that all that mattered was where I ended up after I died.

Would I be part of the Light, or part of the Dark?

I was too young to really see a difference. I knew that horned devil that attacked us and killed that nice old man was bad, and I knew that he had been dark, because they told me so. But what made him dark, I used to wonder?

Was it the colors on his face, the dirty yellow in his eyes? Was it the way he smiled during a fight? Was the smile even real, or a false bravado? I noticed that darkness was cold, and light was warm. I wondered why everyone was so afraid of a cool breeze. Wouldn't too much warmth make you feel sick? Wouldn't it be better if you had a little of both?

I used to wonder about a lot of things. I would ask my master, but he was too young to know the answers. He would stumble over a few words before muttering an answer that seemed wise at the time, but as I look back now, he was really trying to convince himself more than me.

He was as lost as I was.

Sometimes he would walk outside in those gardens all by himself. He never took me with him, but I would follow him once in a while. I'm sure he knew I was there, but he never paid me any attention. He was closed off to everything but himself and the garden.

He would walk to this little pool and just sit there. Or sometimes he would lie down and watch the stars, humming a little tune to himself. It seemed like a rather sad song at first, until the first time I heard the words.

I was lying behind a bush, my hands underneath my head, mirroring his position. I think I was ten, if I remember correctly. He was humming that sad song again, looking up at the stars through blue gray eyes. I knew the notes by then, and was softly humming along. He probably heard me, but I knew he wouldn't say anything.

Then he began to sing.

He was hesitant at first, as if he was trying to remember the words, but his voice grew more confident with each passing second. Not that it grew any louder. His voice was still soft, and a little raspy, but surprisingly pleasant to listen to.

I don't remember the words exactly, though I used to know them by heart.

It was something about a rainbow.

**_Somewhere over the rainbow_**

**_skies are blue,_**

**_and those of you who dare to dream,_**

**_your dreams really can come true…_**

I had terrible dreams. No, not dreams. They were nightmares. They began a few years after I came to the Temple, maybe when I was twelve or so. I never had a good night's rest, which is probably why my master always told me I was crabby.

He woke me sometimes. Those were the only times I ever saw a touch of worry on his face. I might even say he was afraid, though I don't know why. It was nothing for _him_ to worry about. It wasn't _his_ mother dying over and over again every single night.

But there he sat, holding me close to him occasionally, whispering comforting words. I never understood why he did that. I couldn't understand what would possess a person to care like that, especially in a place like that, where everyone was so cold and emotionless. Darkness was cold, and in the halls of the Temple, it felt dark. But during those nights, when he was drying my tears on his sleep shirt, I felt warm. I didn't understand.

Only my mother ever did that for me.

Should I dare to call him my father?

I used to hope he was. Are hopes considered dreams? If so, I dared to dream. I dared to call him the father I never had.

Still, my mother kept dying. No matter what he did, she died every single time. And eventually, my nightmares came true.

She died for real. Right in my arms.

I felt colder than I'd ever felt. I don't remember crying. Every Tusken that fell by my blade was an act of revenge, as if doing that would somehow bring her back.

But with each swing, she only seemed to get farther away. The cold edges that began to creep up on me didn't go away, even when I told Padme what happened.

She cried for the both of us, I guess. And she held me, just like my master did, rubbing my back and whispering comforting words in my ears. She kept telling me she loved me, over and over again. I knew she did, and I loved her more than I've ever loved anyone before.

But still the cold stayed, a bitter chill that hung in my veins.

The nightmares continued, and this time I would wake next to my wife, my chest heaving for air, a cold sweat covering my bare skin. Usually, she would continue to sleep, as I no longer cried when I woke up. I was no longer a child.

But I wished she would. I wished she would wake up and hold me. And though I loved her very much, I found myself wishing that my master was still around, someone who could sense my inner torture. Someone who would come and hold me until the cold parts of my body thawed again.

I still hoped. I still dared to dream that maybe one day, he would be my father. But he never did come. I was no longer his padawan at that point, and it wouldn't be appropriate for me to put in a request to stay in his quarters. I was no longer a child.

But I still felt lost like one. The line between light and dark was still blurry, even though the differences were getting more apparent every month.

Padme woke up on some nights and sat with me. Little bits and pieces of my heart would grow warm again, but those nights were few and far between. It wasn't her fault that she couldn't sense the dark, and I didn't blame her for that.

I wondered if my master still felt lost. Over the years, his answers to my questions had come without much stuttering anymore, and I had actually begun to glimpse that spark of wisdom that was far beyond my comprehension. But I knew that even men on his level could still stray to a path that never led anywhere.

I wondered if he was on the same path that I was on, where there were no signs to point you in the right direction and all you could do was keep walking, hoping that eventually you would stumble upon a straighter course.

If he was on the same path I was on, I knew I would have to run to catch up with him. Because even though I was lost and had been for quite some time, I knew that if he was on this path, he had found it a lot sooner than I had.

He hadn't been ready to be my master. He never _should_ have been my master. I don't blame him, but I do wonder if he ever wishes he had been willing to break just one promise.

On the really bad nights, where I know I won't be able to escape the nightmares no matter how many times I wake up, I go to the gardens. And I lie down behind that same bush, hoping he'll show up to sit by the pool on the other side.

It's not that I want him to be lost like me, but I want to hear him sing. I don't remember the words, just the notes, and something about a rainbow.

So all I can do is lie there and hum a sad little song. The tears that fall from my eyes are ones of frustration. I can't figure out why such a sad song would have anything to do with a rainbow.

**_Someday I'll wish upon a star_**

**_and wake up where the clouds are far behind me,_**

**_where troubles melt like lemon drops_**

**_way up above the chimney tops…_**

You've heard of roads that lead to nowhere? I was on one, and I _reached_ nowhere. The years passed quickly.

I grew numb to the killing, the screams, the death, the dying, the pain, the suffering… I felt nothing. The war raged on, but nothing affected me. Nothing but those terrible nights.

The nightmares kept going, and now my beautiful wife was dying over and over again. Her screams echoed continuously in my head, even when I was awake. Every time I saw an innocent person die, it was her face I saw, not the one of a complete stranger.

I asked Yoda what I should do about it, but his words went in one ear and out the other. It wasn't the advice of a master that I needed.

It was the advice of a father.

But I didn't have one. My hopes had faded into pleas that I would utter whenever I thought about it. I no longer dreamed for a father, because that was the one dream that hadn't come true. He was too busy, he was always in the med center or in council meetings, or meditating… he just wasn't around.

But the Chancellor was. He was always available, conveniently so. Suspicions crept into my thoughts for a while, but I dismissed them. Could this be the father that I was hoping for? The first man hadn't worked out, but maybe this man was who I had been searching for. Maybe this man knew how to quell the nightmares. Maybe he would set me on a new path, one that didn't lead to nowhere.

He set me on a new path straight away. He showed me the way to where my full potential was waiting. I wondered why I hadn't seen this path before. Had I truly been so blind? Had I really fallen for such a lie?

And on a heated planet boiling with the very rage that I felt, I stared down the man who would've been my father, and I felt cold. There was fire everywhere, sulfur burning my eyes; my skin even felt hot!

But the bitter cold was back, and it was deeper and icier than it had been before.

Suddenly, I didn't want to be on this new path anymore. I would rather be lost and alone instead of running on a road that led deeper and deeper into a dark, numbing pit.

But it was too late for that, so I accepted my decision and went with it. I ignored his cries of anguish. I could hear him calling from that path that I had left behind. He was still on it, still lost, but he had stopped to wait for me. I ignored him.

I ran past him, until he was long gone and out of sight.

There is no warmth anymore. Just cold. I don't have a father, just a new master. I'm a slave again, like I was when I was a child. Trapped in a suit, forced to live off of this machine for the rest of my life.

I don't know which path I'm on anymore. All I know is that I'm on the wrong one. My wife is back on that other path, somewhere with our child, waiting for me to return. She'll be waiting indefinitely, because a line separates us now. Between light and dark. I can see it now.

They used to say death doesn't matter. And it doesn't. All that matters is where I'll be after I die.

I will be in darkness.

I am brooding over this fact, wondering if I should just end it now, when a sad little hum begins to drift towards me.

He would be ancient by now, I know. I probably wouldn't even recognize him. I wonder why on earth he is on the Death Star of all places when he should be as far from here as possible.

My feet move of their own accord. I don't want to do this. I didn't want to do it then, I don't want to do it now. But the song beckons me. It is still only a hum, no words, but _he's_ here. It's as if I'm back in the gardens, listening from the other side of the bush.

I turn the corner and see him there. Had we been in the gardens, he wouldn't have paid me any mind. But this time he turns and locks his eyes on mine. He doesn't smile, but he doesn't frown either. He simply stares at me. The humming isn't coming from his mouth; it's coming from his mind, drifting over a bond we used to share a long time ago. A time when I used to dream that he was my father.

He continues to hum even as he draws his lightsaber and ignites it, making the situation eerily similar to one so many years ago. I start to walk towards him. My first strike sizzles as it meets his own blade, but I don't hear it.

I hear his voice, soft and raspy, but surprisingly pleasant. He's singing something about a rainbow, about flying over it to a place where skies are blue. I haven't seen a blue sky in a long time.

Our blades meet again in a battle of wills, spitting and crackling. His age hinders him. My suit hinders me. This will get us nowhere.

But his words continue, drifting over that line between light and dark, drifting onto my cold, black path. Something about dreams coming true, and all troubles melting away, somewhere over a rainbow…

**_That's where you'll find me…_**

He's not able to continue, because I've just killed him. He disappears and his robes just fall to the floor like he had never been there at all.

But I know where he went, because he just told me where to find him.

**_Somewhere over the rainbow_**

**_little bluebirds fly._**

**_Little blue birds fly over the rainbow,_**

**_so why, oh why, can't I?_**

My son is leaning over me, telling me he's not going to leave me, that everything will be okay. He tells me that he has to save me, not realizing that he already has. I smile weakly, saying a few parting words, hoping it's enough for him to know how much I love him.

Even as I hear him call me "father" one last time, I song drifts towards me from a place I've been trying to reach my entire life.

The voice is soft, raspy, and warm.

And then I'm running towards him, towards the only man who was ever my father. There's still that voice in the back of my head telling me that he held me back, that he didn't love me, he never cared for me, that because of him I lived in a suffocating suit for the rest of my life.

It's telling me I shouldn't run to him, I shouldn't believe that his arms are open because he _does_ love me and he _does _believe in me.

But if he was able to follow that path, the one that led to nowhere, and find a place such as this at the end of it, why can't I?

**_If happy little bluebirds fly _**

**_way up above the big blue sky…_**

**_why can't I?_**

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><p><em>Well? What did you think? Even if you didn't like the one-shot, you really should check out the song... :) Please review!<em>


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